CHAPTER IX.—SLANDER’S SHAFT.
They were still at breakfast when the postman arrived, and Madge was surprised to find amongst the letters two from the Manor. Both were addressed in Miss Hadleigh’s large angular writing: one was for her uncle, the other for herself.
As Madge had long conducted her uncle’s correspondence, she attended to his letters first; but remembering that still unexplained quarrel, misunderstanding, or whatever it was, between him and Mr Hadleigh, she discreetly kept the letter from Ringsford back till she had disposed of the others. These were all on business, and of a most satisfactory nature: good prices for grain, good prices for sheep and cattle, and reports of a deficient harvest in America, whilst that of Willowmere was excellent. Uncle Dick was in capital humour, and disposed to be on good terms with everybody. It is wonderful how prosperous all the world looks when our own affairs are thriving; and how merciful we can be in our judgment as to the cause of our neighbour’s failure.
Then Madge—sly Madge—opened the Ringsford letter, and read a formal invitation to dinner at the Manor a fortnight hence, on the eve of Mr Philip Hadleigh’s departure.
‘You will go, of course, uncle?’ said Madge, looking up with a coaxing smile.—‘And you will break through your rule of not going to parties for once, aunt? You know we may not see Philip for a long, long time.’
Aunt Hessy smiled, and looked inquiringly at her husband. Dick Crawshay was not a man to bear malice; but it was evident that he did not relish this invitation. He was not frowning, but his face was not quite so cheerful as it had been a moment before.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, rising. ‘I hate these sort of things at Ringsford. They’ve always a lot of people that don’t know anything’ (about farming and cattle, he meant); ‘and when I’m there, I always feel as uncomfortable as a bull in a china-shop that didn’t want to break the crockery. Certain, I have spoken to some young fools that knew all about betting lists, but not one that knew the points of a horse—except Wrentham. They only want me there because they want you, Madge; and if it wasn’t for you, I’d say no straight off.’
‘But you mustn’t do that, uncle; at least wait till we see what is in my letter.’
‘You can tell me about it when I come in. That new reaping-machine ain’t doing what I expected of it, and I want to give it a fair trial under my own eyes.’
With that he went out, preceded by the dogs; for they had made for the door the moment their master rose to his feet, and as it opened, almost tumbled over each other in their haste to be first afield.
‘I hope he will go,’ said Madge thoughtfully; adding, after a pause: ‘We must try to persuade him, aunt.’
‘Why are you so anxious about this, child? I never knew you to be very eager to go to Ringsford yourself.’
‘Because I am about to disappoint Mr Hadleigh in a matter which he considers of great importance.’
Then she read the strange letter she had received from him, and Dame Crawshay was surprised almost as much as Madge herself by the earnestness of the appeal it contained. She was silent for several minutes, evidently occupied by some serious reflections. At length:
‘Thou knowest how I love the lad; but that does not blind me to his faults—nay, it need not startle thee to hear me say he has faults: we all have our share of them. Perhaps it is lucky for thee that what seems to me Philip’s worst fault is that he has the impulsive way his father speaks about.’
‘But all his impulses are good-natured ones.’
‘I do not doubt it; but that makes it the more needful he should have some experience of the world’s ways before tying himself and you down to a hard-and-fast line. Nothing but experience will ever teach us that the hard-and-fast line of life is the easiest in the end. There’s a heap of truth in what Mr Hadleigh says about Philip, though he doesn’t seem to me to have found the surest way of keeping him right.’
‘What would you advise, then?’ was the eager question.
‘Thou must settle this matter for thyself, Madge; but I will tell thee that there is one thing Mr Hadleigh is quite wrong about.’
‘What is that?’
‘In saying that Mr Shield would try to keep Philip from you.’
The emphasis on the last word and the curious, half-sad, half-pleased smile which accompanied it, caused Madge to ask wonderingly:
‘Did you know Mr Shield?’
‘Ay, long ago, before he went abroad.’
‘Have you never seen him since?’
‘Once—only once, and that was a sad time, although we were not five minutes together. He heard only a bit of the truth: he would not stay to hear it all, and I daresay he has had many a sorry hour for it since.’
She ceased, and leaning back on her chair, lapsed into a dream of sorrowful memories. Madge did not like to disturb her, for she was suddenly amazed by the suspicion that once upon a time Austin Shield had been Aunt Hessy’s lover.
But the active dame was not given to wool-gathering, and looking up quickly, she caught the expression of her niece, and guessed its meaning.
‘Nay, thou art mistaken,’ she said, shaking her head, and that curious smile again appeared on her face; ‘there has only been one man that was ever more than another to me, and that’s thy uncle.... But I’ll tell thee a secret, child; it can do no harm. Hast forgotten what I was telling thee and Philip in the garden yesterday?’
‘About the two lovers? O no.’
‘Well, the man was Mr Austin Shield, and the girl was thy mother.’
‘My mother!’ was the ejaculation of the astounded Madge.
‘Yes. It was a silly business on her part, poor soul; but she was cruelly deceived. She had been told lies about him; and there were so many things which made them look like truth, that she believed them.’
‘What could she have been told that could make her forget him?’
‘She never did forget him—she never could forget him; and she told the man she married so. What she was told was, that Austin had forgotten her, and taken somebody else to wife. At the same time no letters came from him. She waited for months, watching every post; but there was never a sign from him. She fretted and fretted; and father fretted to see her getting so bad on account of a man who was not worth thinking about. He had broken his word, and that was enough to make father turn his back on him for ever.’
‘But how did my mother come to—to marry so soon?’
‘She was kind of persuaded into it by father, and by her wish to please him. He was a kind good man; but he was strict in his notions of things. He considered that it was sinful of her to be thinking of a man who had done her such wrong. Then Mr Heathcote was a great friend of father’s—he was a deacon in our chapel—and he asked sister to be his wife. He was quiet and well-to-do then; and father was on his side, though he was twenty years older than your mother. Father thought that his age would make him the better guide for one who was so weak as to keep on mourning for a base man. He was never done speaking about the happy home that was offered her, and in every prayer asked the Lord to turn her heart into the right path. At last she consented: but she told Mr Heathcote everything; and he said he was content, and that he would try his best to make her content too, by-and-by. Father was glad—and that did cheer poor sister a bit, for she was fond of father. So she married.’
‘And then?’
Only the subdued voice, the wide, startled eyes, indicated the agitation of the daughter, who was listening to this piteous story of a mother’s suffering.
‘And then there came a letter from Austin Shield, and he came himself almost as soon as the letter. He had been “up country,” as he called it, for more than a year, and he had been lucky beyond all his expectations. But there were no posts in the wild places he had been staying at. He had written to warn us not to expect to hear of him for many months; but the vessel that was carrying that message home to us—eh, deary, what sorrow it would have saved us—was wrecked in a fog on some big rock near the Scilly Isles; and although a-many of the mail-bags were fished up out of the sea, the one with sister’s letter in it was never found.’
‘What did my poor mother do?’
‘She sat and shivered and moaned; but she could not speak. I saw him when he came, and told him that he must not see her any more, for she was married. I wasn’t able to tell him how it happened, for the sight of his face feared me so. It was like white stone, and his eyes were black. Before I could get my tongue again, he gave me a look that I can never forget, and walked away.... I found out where he was, some time afterwards, and wrote telling him all about it. He answered me, saying: “Thank you. I understand. God bless you all.” We never had another word direct from him; but we often heard about him; and some time after your mother went to rest, we learned that he had really got married; and the news pleased me vastly, for it helped me to think that maybe he was comfortable and resigned at last. I hope he is; but he has no family, and his sending for Philip looks as if he wants somebody to console him.’
‘But who was it spread the lies about him at the first?’
‘Ah, that we never knew. It was cleverly done; the story was in everybody’s mouth; but nobody could tell where it had come from.’
The feelings of Madge as she listened to her aunt were of a complicated nature: there was the painful sympathy evoked by the knowledge that it was her own mother who had been so wickedly deceived; then it seemed as if the events related had happened to some one else; and again there was a mysterious sense of awe as she recognised how closely the past and the present were linked together. Philip was the near relation of the man her mother had loved, and was to be parted from her on his account for an indefinite period.
Who could tell what Fate might lie in this coincidence?
She pitied the lovers; and her indignation rose to passion at thought of the slanderers who had caused them so much misery. Then came confused thoughts about her father: he, too, must have loved as well as Mr Shield; and he had been generous.
Gentle hands were laid upon her bowed head, and looking up, she met the tender eyes of Aunt Hessy.
‘I have troubled you, child; but I have told you this so that you may understand why I cannot counsel you to bid Philip stay or go.’
A soft light beamed on Madge’s face; a sweet thought filled her heart. She would bid Philip go to help and comfort the man her mother had loved.